


The Forgotten Queen

by someillplanetreigns



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Asgard, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Headcanon, Hela and Loki are siblings, Hela and Loki have the same mother, Hela's mother, Jötunheimr | Jotunheim, Odin is an unreliable narrator, Odin's A+ Parenting, filling in some questions after Thor Ragnarok, folk tale elements, is not Frigga, not a happy fic, poor Freyja, this is a story about her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-20
Updated: 2018-09-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 18:00:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16045676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someillplanetreigns/pseuds/someillplanetreigns
Summary: Her name was wiped from history, as her daughter's was, but Freyja, Queen of Asgard and Jotunheim, is the vital missing piece of a now well-known story.





	The Forgotten Queen

They were at war when she came. War was all almost anyone knew at that time. She had arrived in Asgard wearing a cloak of feathers and demanded to speak to Odin as though she were already queen.

“I have come to broker peace,” she said.

“And what do you offer?”

“Myself.”

In some versions of the tale (before all versions of the tale were lost), as she spoke she let the cloak drop.

Freyja was beautiful. Her hair was dark as her raven-feather cloak, her eyes cool and intelligent, her smile razor sharp. Odin may have married her because he desired her. Or perhaps because she was right, and marrying a Vanir did bring the two realms into an uneasy peace. Or it was because Freyja was everything the warrior king could need in a queen: there was no sorceress more powerful, none so deadly in combat, none so brilliant and scheming. Many theories circulated before they ceased all at once.

Freyja, it was incontestable, though unspoken, married Odin because she wanted to be queen. Or, more accurately, because she wanted to be _sovereign_ , and a husband was her price to pay to get as close to that as possible.

She filled her role well. She brought once-free kingdoms under Asgard’s boot, razed cities where resistance was strong with a few elegant motions; _Queen Freyja kills as though it were a dance_ , they said of her, before her name was never spoken again. She even gave Odin an heir presumptive.

Hela was more than Asgard’s king and queen could ever have wished. Even as a girl her power with seiðr was phenomenal – and her stomach for violence was strong, which was just as important.

Neither Hela nor her mother would ever have dreamed that Odin, for all his power-hunger, his desperate desire to _conquer_ , to _rule_ , to _own_ , would want to stop, to settle, to sit back upon his blood-forged throne and draw a veil of respectability over it, to pretend his new map had been drawn with diplomacy, not the tip of a sword.

They had been the perfect wife and child for the warrior king, but not for the benevolent emperor.

History is written by the victors. History, and even the tongues of the time, would not tell of Freyja and Hela; they were forgotten in an instant. But they were not gone.

 

They were all the same, Aesir or Jotun. And Freyja could be beautiful in whatever form she chose. As Laufey appraised her, his gaze was no different to Odin’s all those centuries ago: calculating, and just failing to hide the hint of arousal.  

“Why are you here, slip-skin?” he demanded.

She flashed her new, sharp, Jotun teeth. “You wish to rule what Odin currently claims dominion over. He may have chosen to forget, but _I_ am the King-Maker. What I won for him, I would now win for you – _All-Father_.”

“And what is your price?”

“The throne which is rightfully mine.”

It was much the same as it had been the last time, just a new man and a new body. Laufey wanted power and progeny, and it was Freyja who would give him both.

She was more brutal than ever before; each soldier dead by her hand was not only a stepping stone to her throne, but a tribute to the daughter ripped from her, vengeance for the child she thought dead.

But Laufey’s armies were inferior; strong, loyal, but worse-equipped, lacking the intense level of polished training of Asgard’s troops. And fighting whilst pregnant was always a hindrance. Odin pushed them back into Jotunheim, refusing to stop until he’d had his decisive victory.

As the war raged in Utgard, the queen fought her own battle. She won. When Laufey saw the child, he declared it would have been better had she lost.

She could not hold her false form in labour. The baby that was born, Laufey’s heir, was not the size of a Jotun; he was Freyja’s baby, and he fitted perfectly in the crook of her real arm. Laufey seized it from her himself.

Weaponless, bloodied, swaying, Freyja killed everyone who stood between her and the temple. When she stood over Laufey’s corpse, her knife jutting from his neck, she hissed, “Not again.”

She held her son securely in her arms, though she shook and bled from the labour and the fighting, needing her son for strength almost as much as she needed her.

She was slumped against the altar, almost unable to stand, when Odin came. She didn’t look up, only rasped out: “I heard your new wife gave you a son.”

“Thor,” he confirmed gruffly, stepping into the light.

“Loki.” Freyja lifted her baby slightly in her arms to indicate him. She had blood still coating the insides of her shaking legs, staining her clothes and hands. It was impossible to tell where hers ended and another’s began. She was slicked in sweat. There was a track from a single, dried tear on her cheek.

“You’re injured.”

“Perceptive as always, oath-breaker. Do you _care_? After all I did for you? If you can’t summon some feeling for me for old times’ sake, you could at least show some gratitude that I killed your adversary.”

She expected him to point out that it was _she_ who was his adversary, but he said nothing.

“Oh,” she breathed, though her breath was laboured now, “you _do_ care.” A beat. “I don’t think I’ve ever had so little respect for you.”

He made no move to defend himself.

“I will make a deal with you, Odin. One you cannot break this time.”

He looked down at Laufey’s body, then up at her, taking in her bloodied gown and bloodless-pale skin, her posture almost but not quite belying just how injured she was. He looked at baby Loki, curled against his mother’s chest.

“Tell me.”

“You will raise Loki as your own. Give him to _her_ – I always heard good things about Frigga. She doesn’t know what you did, does she? I can’t think she would have married you if she did. You erased all memories of us.” He bowed his head a fraction in admission. “And she’s a good sorceress. Not _me_ , but good.” She barked a bitter laugh.

“And in return I claim I killed Laufey?”

“That was a given. No, in return I will kneel and look away when you kill me.”

He looked at Loki again, and then, like the weak man he had always truly been, he looked away.

“I never wanted it to end this way, Freyja.”

“Oh yes Odin, poor you, truly the victim of circumstances _far_ beyond your control.”

A single beat of silence. “Why?”

“I won’t survive this. Better a quick death. But I will not lose another child. Much as I despise you – and do not mistake me, I do despise you – options to keep a half-breed Jotun safe and cared for are rather limited. At least I have a way to ensure you keep your word.”

There was something _almost_ like softness in Odin’s eyes which Freyja was not fool enough to wholly trust as he said, “I accept.”

“Your eye for my life, then. To seal the oath.” Her voice did not waver, but she pressed Loki tighter to her slowing heart.

He continued to look away from her as he did it. She supposed he didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. Did he not realise she was beyond satisfaction?

They clasped bloody hands, a grotesque parody of the hand-fasting at their wedding.

“You, Odin, swear to raise this child as your own son.”

“I, Odin, swear to raise this child as my own son.”

“And for that I give my life.”

“And if I break my oath, for that I give my life.”

“Let him be loved. Let him be safe. Let him have what she did not.”

The seiðr sank through them both.

Freyja kissed her son’s head. “I love you, Loki,” she murmured. He was crying, his thin wail the only sound in the impossibly high-vaulted temple, and in that moment all the she wanted was to hold him to herself and never, ever let him go.

She handed him to Odin.

She was surprised by how carefully he held him.

She turned from Odin and knelt on the ground, head bowed as though in prayer.

**Author's Note:**

> I totally headcanon that Hela and Loki have the same mother (we've all seen the memes that Thor looks like the adopted one!). And I can't believe Frigga would have been okay with Odin's conquering days and imprisonment of Hela, so some ousted previous queen makes sense to me. A blood-oath like this would also explain why Frigga went along with Odin's lie for so long, which always sort of troubled me. She knows for Loki to be told he's not Odin's son would result in Odin's death; Odin just admitting it when Loki already knew sent him into the Odinsleep. She may love Loki and want to tell him the truth, but she also doesn't want to risk her husband's life. 
> 
> I'd vaguely like to use this as backstory for an Infinity War fix-it that sees Loki and Hela teaming up, but that's... ambitious, so we'll see how that goes.


End file.
